3 key takeaways from my first #CommunityLIVE

As I boarded the elevator Friday morning with all my bags, ready to start my journey back home, I noticed some CommunityLIVE customer attendees with their ‘flair’d out’ lanyards and CommunityFIT yoga mats.

“Hi there, how did you enjoy the conference?” I asked.

“It was wonderful. Best I’ve ever attended,” one customer responded.

“It was my first one,” said the other. ”It was really, REALLY good!”

When the elevator door opened and we parted ways, I thanked them both for coming and couldn’t help but feel extremely proud about being part of the conference team after hearing that feedback. I immediately started reflecting back on the amazing and busy week that was my first CommunityLIVE.

Having joined Hyland just over one year ago, I had heard so much about this great conference with such a rich history of education, collaboration, innovation, and fun times. And CommunityLIVE 2018 (our largest yet), certainly did not disappoint.

The top 3 things I learned

There was a lot to learn, many people to connect with, and new solutions to investigate. But if I had to choose, here are my three key takeaways from this year’s event:

1. Our customers’ passion for content services is second to none

The buzz among attendees was instantaneous. From the moment Community Central’s doors opened, you could feel the energy throughout the expansive Gaylord Opryland Convention Center.

During the week, I had multiple opportunities to sit down and speak with our customers at various meals and networking events. Some had been with Hyland since the very early days, back when our industry focused on document management. Others were new and, like me, eager to learn as much as they could about the exciting possibilities of content services during their time in Nashville.

But no matter how long they’ve been a customer, their feedback was incredibly consistent: They loved their Hyland and partner teams, they believed strongly that Hyland solutions delivered immense value to their organizations, and they were all very excited about the opportunity to spend lots of time with, and learn from, their peers all week.

That passion – multiplied by more than 2,000 attendees – is what makes CommunityLIVE so special.

Whether it’s deep expertise about advanced integrations with ERP and HRIS technologies, delivering solutions developed specifically for our government customers to better serve their constituents, or ultimately helping their customers leverage Hyland’s industry-leading solutions like Brainware to more efficiently and effectively exceed their business goals and objectives, our partners’ deep expertise and working knowledge of our innovative solutions is unparalleled anywhere else in this industry.

That’s a lot, I know. But sometimes, a 65-word sentence is the only thing that will suffice.

3. I work with some remarkably smart, hardworking, and talented people

One of the best experiences of the conference was being able to sit in on a number of impactful Hylander-led sessions on various content services topics – many of which were so popular, they were standing room only! A few of my favorites were from teams representing the OnBase platform, the Hyland Cloud, and Content Composer.

It was also great to watch several customers collaborate with their Hyland teams to present how a content services approach has helped their businesses overcome complicated challenges to grow and flourish in the age of digital transformation.

See for yourself

Yes, I’m slightly biased. But I believe CommunityLIVE is one of the best technology conferences I’ve been fortunate enough to attend throughout my career so far. But don’t take my word for it, check out our Best of CommunityLIVE online series from the comfort of your own computer. And I strongly recommend planning to attend in 2019. (Hello Cleveland!)

Last but not least, if you’re a technologist, sales, or marketing pro and by chance the above sounds exciting and you’re looking to join a winning team, I’d be remiss if I didn’t close out by making sure you know that we’re hiring!